“Oh, Charlie,” said Mrs Marchmont, drawing a deep breath, “I like you ever so much! Tell me how I can help.”
“Here are the others,” said Everitt, standing upright. “I’ll let you know, Mary, when I’ve thought it out.”
The day was grey and showery; the changing silvery lights bringing out the colours of the great banks of rhododendrons massed together in the Park. Everitt walked for some time up and down under the trees, trying to see his way out of his absurd difficulties. They were absurd, but they were not pleasant. To have your acquaintance declined is to receive something very like a slap in the face; the next step forward does not present itself very naturally. However, he was not the man to flinch at an obstacle.
He made his next move on Sunday. The chapel of the old Hospital is open to strangers, and Everitt went off in good time to secure his vantage post. It was a wet, gusty day, full of growth and softness, a southerly wind blowing across the river, the trees washed into lovely tender greens, the red of the building beautiful against the grey clouds. The birds were singing as usual; the old men encourage them, and they take full advantage of the safe shelter they find. Just a few people were turning in at the gates, and lingering on their way to the clock-tower to look up at the solid walls, when Everitt made his way into the circular hall facing the fine quadrangle. The old soldier who acted as verger was not disinclined for a little chat. That was the governor’s stall, the second in command there, and the other officers round, as he saw. Captain Lascelles? Yes, just before him. If he were a friend of the family, he might like to go into their pew, or next to them? No? Well, where would the gentleman like? Everitt indicated a spot opposite, where he would be fully in sight, and the old man promptly conducted and shut him in.
It was early, and Everitt looked round him with a good deal of interest. The chapel, with its plaster ceiling and its high panelling of oak, was ugly enough, but there was enough in its details to be suggestive. The old soldiers came dropping in, with fine furrowed faces, and an air of pride over their medals and their clasps, which stand out in brave relief against their blue coats. Here is one quite blind, carefully led in by a comrade; there is another with an old, gentle face and snow-white hair, with four medals and quite a procession of clasps on his hollow chest. They file in soon in larger numbers, filling up by hundreds the body of the church. And overhead hang the old tattered remnants of flags taken in glorious battle, older many of them than the oldest men, held together by network, colours faded, substance gone—not a shred left on the Blenheim poles. There are the Waterloo eagles, there the republican cap of liberty still flaunts itself; but nowhere in the whole proud array is anything more pathetic than on one of the Indian flags, where, looking closely, you may see on the dull surface the print of a hand, the dead man’s hand whose faithful clasp is marked upon his trust for ever.
By the time Everitt had been there for a quarter of an hour, he was watching the door very carefully. Already a lady and two or three children had gone into the Lascelles’ pew, but it was only a minute or two before the service began that Kitty and her mother presented themselves. She noticed him before long. Perhaps some consciousness of the intentness of his gaze touched her and drew her eyes to his; at any rate, he saw an immediate and troubled look of recognition cross her sweet face. Nor did she glance at him again. He had no encouragement of this sort; but as his former means of studying her had been of an unusual kind, so now it appeared to him as if she gained a fresh charm from the simplicity and gravity of her surroundings—the old men sitting upright, attentive, the old flags slowly waving backwards and forwards over their heads, the solemn words of the familiar service.
When it was finished, Everitt remained in his seat until the Lascelles had left the church. He looked eagerly round when he got out, but the whole family had disappeared; the pensioners chatted in groups, the sun shone out between the clouds on the grass of the quadrangle, and on a few white sea-birds which had come up the river.
Everitt went home dissatisfied.